This thread is continued from:
http://community.coreldraw.com/forums/p/19344/100072.aspx#100072
... but is intended to be PP specific. It's a list for Corel bug fixers... one place for them to easily find many bugs... big or small, crash/freezing or just wrong GUI stuff. This is not intended to be a wants list, but obviously sometimes there's overlap... one person's wish is another person's GUI bug. This thread will probably be boring reading for most of us, but hopefully this will efficiently help the bug-finding and bug-fixing process. Hopefully you can be as specific as possible about the circumstances of what you were doing when the problem occured, but I know from personal experience that some of the crash/freeze problems just happen or are around all the time.
I'll start it off with a few itty bitty new ones.
- Make the popup text the same for icons as they're called in the customization/commands dialog
-eg. "Fit in Window" is a zoom command, and it's popup text says "Zoom to fit" - which imho is a good name... fit to window should be changed
-eg. "Initiate cutout tool" is not the cutout tool being started... it's the "cutout lab"
- The zoom 25% command is using the zoom 33 icon.
- when you hold L on a pallete colour to bring up the super cool hue popup colour picker box (which is great), don't force the user to pick a colour with Left-mouse (for foreground in PP) if you accidentally drag the mouse (with L button still down) into the popup... if the user goes out of the popup with L held down, let them release without a choice being registered, and keep the popup open so the user can use L or R to pick.
- this colour picker kinda-bug (sorta) is also a wish/bug for Draw (for fill and outline instead), but I've been told that it's better to separate the threads for better communication.
Here's to a better PP and Graphics Suite X5.
- at different zoom levels, the outside area (overscroll area) changes form light to dark... this is bad because (at least on my reasonably quick computer), when you zoom using the mouse wheel, you get a dark grey and then light grey flicker effect. It's very brief, but adds to the feeling that the software isn't solid. Make the outside area one colour... and make it a changeable option... so the user can choose to work light on dark or vise versa.
- when you crop to colour when you're zoomed in, the refresh doesn't work correctly for the background area (it goes the dark shade)
- *maybe* (as an option) make the brush use XOR on the brush's outline so you can see it over chaotic textures. When I'm drawing on some textures, I can't see the brush.
- the drawing utensils need to be able to have shortcuts set for them. Everything else can... even obscure icons/actions. The basics should definitley be able to link up to a shortcut key... eg. brush, airbrush, pencil, pen, marker, etc. I'm not even talking customized brushes (which also need to be shortcutable)... I'm talking the basic drawing tools. This also includes smear, smudge, and all the other specific "effect" tools. This is a no-brainer. You don't primarily use the program to do "pen and ink"... you're smudging, smearing, cloning, and using the different brush tools... Clone is shortcutable... the others should be too. It's common sense.
- have a way to disable the "masks will not be saved in this format" message when you're working with jpgs and other basic raster formats. It's annoying and completely unnecessary the thousandth time... make it a dialog that can be disabled?
Davoid said: The basics should definitley be able to link up to a shortcut key... eg. brush, airbrush, pencil, pen, marker, etc. I'm not even talking customized brushes (which also need to be shortcutable)... I'm talking the basic drawing tools.
One problem is that I bet 9 out of 10 PP users don't know the effect tools exist. They are missing tons of power.
I totally agree that access to the powerful tools with user-definable shortcuts is critical.
Sometimes I think Corel looks at their software from a new user's perspective, instead of a experienced user's POV who looks at the Corel suite 8-12 hours a day. They should track down the top PP users who are somehow able to create fine art in PP in it's current state, and ask them what drives them crazy.
Pro software will inherently seem complex to newbs due to extensive features. Newbs have no loyalty. Pro users do. Newbs showed up at the PP focus group for the 100.00 and free sandwiches. LOL
Corel's job is to convert newbs into pros, and the only way that's possible is if newbs can make a living by using fast and reliable software. Dumbing down software to appeal to newbs, and irrititating pros by hiding the power they need (and understand) is the wrong path (for pro software) IMO.
One dialog I want to DIE forever is the prompt to retain clipboard contents. I see that 60-100 times, every freaking day....
Paul McGee said:all the fields can be manually enlarged, one at a time :-( by grabbing the edge and holding alt.
Thanks!
It's also weird... I tried the alt trick and it worked the first time (yay), but it doesn't seem to work all the time... about 50% (?) of the time it will resize. Weird.
When cloning and using the Shift+Alt trick to maintain the starting point each time... the refresh around the starting point isn't done and you end up with a messy image.
eg.
Frustrating... it's like these features aren't tested.
Hi Davoid,
the Shift+Alt cloning feature works flawlessly on my computers. Having read about so many things that don't work on your computer, I seriously think your computer system has issues.
Best regards,Brian.
Brian said:the Shift+Alt cloning feature works flawlessly on my computers.
Hi B,
I've seen his problem across all systems I've had, even my current hi-end rig:
Hi Jeff,
I guess I owe Davoid an apology then for my comment about his computer: sorry Davoid. This must be very difficult for Corel when it comes to fixing bugs, they occur on some computers and not on others. How on earth would you deal with that situation? They probably find the features work fine on their test computers and so don't know what to fix. I don't use the Shift+Alt cloning feature a lot, but when I do it always works fine. I have had issues a few years back with the clone cursor generally behaving the way it shows in your video and that always went away when I "reset all brushes". It has not happened in a long time though.
Brian said:How on earth would you deal with that situation?
Every user needs to know that in both Draw and PP, CTRL+W manually refreshes the screen. Without that info... life would be brutal IMO, it's become an instinct for me to often need to press that for my projects.
Hi Brian, appology accepted. Thanks.
Since all the bugs I listed and all the crashing I was having, and after reading about Jeff's rig, I updated my computer. It's probably in the top 5 percentile or higher... and I changed the graphics card to a way quicker one and it's not NVidia - it's a powerful ATI... and I STILL have these crashing problems. I of course am not 100% upset that it doesn't work since I probably should have updated my system, but it wasn't necessary and my computer before was working just fine and was reasonably quick.
I've read a few comments in various threads saying that so and so doesn't have any problems... or maybe has a few problems. I'm having exactly the same crashing bugs I was having before and after sp1 on my slower 2 cpu (with hyperthreading) computer as I'm having now.
I've had it do the slow crash/freeze until it runs out of memory... just about 30 min ago. After re-doing my work, I decided to record it in this bug thread... that the problems persist regardless of NVidia vs ATI... P4 with hyperthreading at 3GHz or i7 with hyperthreading (neither of them are overclocked... and my P4 was ROCK SOLID with ALL OTHER PROGRAMS). PP still is crash crashitty crashy. Since I upgraded my system a few days ago PP has crashed 2 times... and that's not under heavy use... nowhere near what professionals are doing.
*** It REALLY doesn't like it when I'm using my Bamboo (new model) to sketch back and forth with any brush/burn/dodge/clone (it happens with the mouse too). Yes I lift the stylus every once in a while to let the program 'breathe.'
*** I'm thinking some of the problems might have something to do with Windows (?)... here's my reasoning. After installing Windows fresh, I installed all other programs including the X5 GS. I installed VisualStudio 2005 (and the general and Vista service packs), but I can't imagine how this or any other programs would interfer if they're not running (I could definitely be wrong because of some settings?... but what would that have to do with PP or Draw when they are running?). I openned PP and Draw and imported all the settings etc. Tried them out --- no immediate problems. As the hours and days went, Windows Vista updated about a million times (and PP was working fine)... and after one of the sets of updates, PP and Draw WOULD NOT OPEN... even after rebooting. This is telling right?
*** For anyone who hasn't had the pain of experiencing PP freeze, not letting you save as you helplessly and hopelessly watch your memory get eaten up slowly until PP tells you it's run you out of memory (6 popups in a row), and then it hard crashes... try sketching/burning/dodging/cloning with a brush size about 4 to 10pxls (changed using Shift key as you go) on about a 3MegaPxl image for about an hour (For one of the crashes I was just sketching at about 800x600). I won't guarantee it will happen, but it happens to me way more than a forgivable bug.
I don't know if it has to do with multithreading, but maybe there could be a new option in the next servic pack (PLEASE) to use the x4 code for the processing (until this freeze/crash X5 stuff is fixed). I'd waaaaaaaaaaaaay rather it ran a bit slower than it crash. And from Jeff's comments (on another thread), x4 goes plenty fast. A bird in the hand rather than 2 in the bush (with machine guns).
At the time of the freeze/crash, I had an intel cpu sidebar program running (I didn't use the sidebar in the past... it slowed everything down too much), but with it open, I could see all 8 effective cpus going a little crazy (after the freeze)... and the memory % started low at about 45ish% and slowly went up to about 75ish?... then crash.
*** I sure hope Corel is reading this stuff so they know what a bummer this is. I'm trying to help but getting 0.000% feedback about what's happening. Are these comments worth writing. Should I phone in and demand my $ back for a crashing program. I would be very choked if X6 comes out... leaving X5 in such a broken state. There are so many things broken... AND (from reading other threads) there are so many things no addressed from previous versions. ***A little feedback please*** (or some feedback from any of you users who are in-the-know. *** I'm trying not to sound rude, but where are those 3 Corel employees from the X4 threads who were giving a bit of feedback saying they were looking into this or that. I was reading one thread about almost nothing where they all chimed in to help.
I envy any of you guys who don't have crashing problems. You have many hours to waste staring off into space, spending time with your family, or doing something productive rather than redoing work. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean.........
Jeff Harrison said:CTRL+W manually refreshes the screen
I usually just zoom in/out to get a refresh. I have them hooked up to A and D with panning on S. It works pretty quickly for me. I have all the other main things I use shortcutted around the left hand home position. Thanks for the reminder about Ctrl+w.
Open a jpg *** that needs to have it's palette changed to the default *** (this mode is a setting)... then make some changes. Save. It wants you to save as a CPT file (ERROR).
I export as jpg. Try to exit PP, then it asks if I want to save as "whatever.JPG" (notice it says JPG)... so I click YES because I'd rather be able to save it in it's current folder instead of having to do work to get it where it started (as a jpg). When you say YES to save the ***JPG***, it goes to a dialog to the save as CPT (ERROR). It should save as JPG as it asks.
It should save as whatever format you openned. The reasoning is that you are probably just wanting to tweak the current file AT IT'S CURRENT LOCATION... not make a new CPT file.
it says JPG... it should go to a dialog box that allows it to save as JPG... not CPT.
HOWEVER... if you open a JPG and it DOESN'T have to have any colours adjusted... when you go Ctrl-S... it works properly to save as a *** JPG *** by default.
When you're using the eraser and you don't have the background on, the view of the background grid gets distorted. I'm not sure if this is a feature. It seems like the grid should stay perfect.
When you change the background grid colours, it doesn't update (until you reopen the program).